Monkey brain is a traditional delicacy in China.

Eating monkey brains, supposedly by cracking the skull of the live animal with a small hammer for that purpose, is another urban legend that just won't die.

Scott, this is NOT an urban legend.

Several friends have seen this up close and personal. It affected them so deeply, they became vegan animal rights activists.

The methods may vary, but slaughtering primates in restaurants for customers to eat while the meat is still "fresh" -- and the animal sometimes still alive -- is unfortunately something humans do in many places around the world.

Christopher, yours is purely apocryphal, similar to many others claiming knowledge through friends. This urban legend has been on for at least 40 years, some claiming live monkey brain a southern Chinese delicacy while Taiwanese have told me it's a Filipino delicacy as others claim it's an indulgence of Japanese diners in Southeast Asia. The general details are always the same: a round table at which the diners sit with a hole in the middle, the live monkey's head is forced up to the hole and secured by clamps, then the diners take small hammers to crack the skull and eat the live brain with chopsticks. Sounds like something from Mondo Carne.

No, Chinese do not like raw and bloody food most especially meats and much less monkey brain; the only native in the Philippines known to eat monkey brains is the monkey-eating eagle; and in forty years I have never seen nor directly heard from anyone who themselves had seen or eaten the stuff although - and please note very carefully - it has been told to me as accepted "fact" by people in almost every country in East and Southeast Asia. Now comes Christopher.

Such an urban legend says less about cruelty to animals than it tells about how easily some will earnestly accuse others of outrageous practices.